Academic freedom, freedom of speech, and politics

Recently, there has been an attack on academic freedom and free speech at UBC, by fringe right-wing extremists, under the guise of protecting free speech. They recently escalated this attack from bullshit internal political wrangling (which I’ve been helping fight), to a BC Supreme Court Petition: Petition-VLC-S-S–252602-filed–7Apr2025.pdf

I’m so tired. So angry. This is such bullshit.

Let’s talk about academic freedom and freedom of speech.

This whole petition is nonsense. It rests on the false claims that:

1. UBC is forcing faculty to make take certain political positions.
2. UBC is requiring faculty to express certain political speech.
3. UBC is required to be apolitical, which it is not if it makes statements on political topics.

All of this is nonsense.

UBC is not limiting the speech of faculty, nor requiring faculty to make any speech and this attempt to ban speech under the guise of free speech and being apolitical is the same kind of attempt to destroy institutions that’s happening in the US. But, if you intentionally mislead people and conflate different categories, it could look like UBC is being political. So let’s deconstruct some categories.

The petition conflates “UBC” and its administration with the faculty that make up the university, and conflates “speaking on topics related to politics” with “being political”. It is vital that UBC faculty maintain their academic freedom, including to speak on political topics. It is vital that UBC faculty be able to state facts about political topics; that is not being political.

Unrestricted speaking on political topics is vital to academic freedom. All this petition does is try to limit faculty from one kind of speech, thereby benefiting one perspective (and faculty that have their perspective) over another. Merely stating facts is not political, even if those facts are related to politics. Even sharing expert analysis and opinion about political topics is not “being political”. The intention of a university being “apolitical” is for the university to serve the public, regardless of their political perspective, and for its faculty to be protected from political whims, regardless of their political perspective.

What is the university and why do we think it needs to be apolitical?

We faculty need to, need to be trusted to, provide expert analysis, opinion, and education, to everyone, equally—regardless of political stance. The faculty need to be able to speak freely, even and especially on topics that are politically sensitive, to do that. That means they need protection from political whims in the exercise of their academic mission. That doesn’t mean not speaking about politics. It means exactly the opposite: enabling and protecting faculty and groups of faculty to speak about political topics.

So being “apolitical” means to be protected to work on, for, and with anyone regardless of politics. It does not mean “not touching politics”.

Consider a particular policy, say introducing a wealth tax. It’s critical that faculty be able to study, and argue the advantages and disadvantages of a wealth tax. Or, in the exercise of their expert opinion, to argue for a wealth tax as a good policy, or argue against it as a bad policy.

Being “apolitical” does mean that UBC, as an institution, cannot unreasonably restrict the work of the faculty that make up UBC based on political considerations. We can’t have a university administrator telling faculty what to study or support a particular policy. We can’t have university say, as a whole, it is in support of such a policy, over the views of the individual faculty. We can’t have the university come out and say “We’re only providing expert opinions to the liberal party”. That would be “the university being political”.

But that is a straw man that just isn’t happening, and by attempting to restrict speech related to politics to prevent that straw man, you’re actually restricting the speech of individual faculty in the exercise of their academic mission.

This petition is making the same mistake as the above strawman (I’d guess, intentionally).

It is not political to state that “UBC exists on the unceded ancestral territory of the first nations”. That’s just a fact. It does.

It might be political for UBC to come out and say “and we should give it back”. Probably not all faculty agree with that, such as those putting forth this petition.

However, any individual faculty must be protected in saying “and we should give it back”, because they may want to make an academic, political, ethical, sociological, or economic argument about this topic, and conclude that this would be a good policy. Unfortunately, by the same token, individual faculty must also be protected if they want to make the argument that “and it’s super good that we killed a bunch of people and took their land”. That’s a pretty unpopular argument, and I think it would be hard to make, and while you probably shouldn’t lose your academic job if you’re making that argument academically, everyone is in their right to tell you you’re a bad person for making it.

It is also not political to say “We condemn killing children, bombing hospitals, murdering journalists. This meets all the definitions of a genocide, and is bad”. It might be political to for UBC, as an institution, to then suggest we should break off ties with Israel. But individual faculty must be protected in making that argument. It would certainly be a restriction of academic freedom and free speech to say faculty cannot say that, or make that argument. Unfortunately, by the same token, individual faculty must be protected in making an academic argument that Israel is within it’s right to wage total war. Although, that would be a tough argument, given the clear violations of international law. And everyone would be well within their rights to tell you you’re a bad person for making such an argument.

I’m being a little extreme in the above examples; academic freedom isn’t that absolute. Governments can, and do, reasonably restrict faculty from certain kind of speech, and impose other reasonable limits on rights to limit harm. So maybe actually a faculty can’t go around arguing “genocide is good”, because they might incite people to violence and cause a lot of harm. But at least in principle, even distasteful arguments on political topics need to be protected, and at the very least it’s not the university’s role to restrict such rights, but a government’s role. But it would certainly be unreasonable to restrict faculty from making the argument that genocide is bad. What would be the harm; inciting people to stop doing genocide?

Similarly, it might be that a government imposes a reasonable restriction to advance some good. If land acknowledgement statements were political, and I’m not convinced they are, they could be a reasonable restriction of speech in order to undo a harm or advance a common good. If this was a policy set by a government, I wouldn’t have much to say about it. I would still argue that a university shouldn’t set such a policy, and faculty should be protected if they want to argue against that policy (even as they are bound by it).

This attempt to ban certain political speech at the university is a blatant attempt to reduce academic freedom and restrict free speech, and is itself being political. By preventing faculty from expressing facts and opinions on political topics, you benefit exactly one side: the side currently in power that is being spoken out against. Doing that is political; it makes a policy decision. It shifts political power. Exercising academic freedom to speak on political topics is different from “being political”.

If we had a policy that says “UBC can’t support Palestine”, does that mean the institution can’t, or are you restricting the individual faculty? Given that UBC, as an institution, isn’t doing this, this petition can only have the effect of restricting individual faculty. This petition is political, and is trying to restrict academic freedom and free speech.